Debates of Feb. 7th, 2022

COVID-19 Protests

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of things that I disagree with my colleague about, but we agree on one thing. It is important to get out and talk to our constituents.

I have talked to many of my constituents in many municipalities in my riding. Initially, these people supported the convoy enthusiastically. When I talk to them today, however, they realize that this might not have been the right solution and that breaking the law with impunity is perhaps not the way to solve problems.

Does my colleague agree with me on that at least?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to be clear. I did not mention this specifically, but I think it is critically important that people are able to protest and that we minimize the negative impact on the lives of people in this city. There should be effective dialogue, between protesters and the city, that allows necessary access and transportation to occur. I think that dialogue can take place if the Prime Minister plays a constructive role in bringing down the temperature.

This is the national capital and people should be able to protest here. There has to be a space, at the same time, for that to happen in a way that is respectful. There are many people who want to see those kinds of accommodations happen through dialogue. They can happen, but that is different from saying that people should not be allowed here and demonizing the importance of the message they are presenting.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I found the member's speech not just bizarre, but deeply concerning. First off, there was a minimization of the hate and violence we have heard of over the last number days. The member went on to talk about the people he spoke to, making it sound like it is a group of Boy Scouts.

Everybody has talked about the occupation that our nation's capital is under. It is international news. What Canadians expect is leadership from their politicians. We must call on these folks to leave and allow for these people to live their lives free of hate and the lack of safety they face. What is deeply concerning is the number of Conservatives who are insisting on shifting the conversation to talk about vaccine mandates. This debate is about calling for an end to the occupation, and also condemning the foreign money, American money, fuelled by Trump supporters, that is supporting this occupation.

Will the member condemn the use of foreign funds to fuel a hateful and violent occupation in our nation's capital?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, to hear that the member found my speech bizarre is a high compliment indeed.

The member raised the issue of foreign money. I will take this opportunity to say to the member that I would love to see a consistent approach taken by parties opposite when it comes to foreign funding and foreign influence in our democracy. Let us have that debate. Let us see that legislation come forward. I know the member could take a bit of a stronger position when it comes to the interference of the Chinese government in Canadian affairs. I would like to see that member take a stronger position when it comes to issues like the Uighur genocide and other cases of foreign interference happening here in this country.

Let us talk about addressing foreign interference. I would love to see a stronger and consistent policy on that issue.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time this evening with the member for Parkdale—High Park. Even though the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would like me to speak for 20 minutes, unfortunately it will only be 10 minutes this evening. I note he still has not invited me on the podcast he touts so much when he is in the House. I am still waiting for my invitation. Do not worry. I am not checking my email three or four times a day looking for it or anything.

I am very glad to participate in tonight's debate and am going to take the opportunity to present some facts, because I think facts are extremely important. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and it would be beneficial to put on the record some of the facts.

It has been said once tonight, but I will expand on it slightly, that 90% of truckers have been vaccinated. I drive from Kingston to Ottawa and back to be here, and on both occasions of making that trip since this protest began, I have seen countless truckers working. They are working right now as we speak, travelling up and down the 401, or whatever major highway in the country they might happen to be on, to move goods around our country. Some 90% of truckers are vaccinated.

I believe this protest, this convoy, probably started from a place that was genuinely about truckers and the concerns they had. Unfortunately, we have seen this morph into something else as it has been hijacked by other groups. As was so well pointed out by one of my Conservative colleagues in a tweet over the weekend, whatever the objective was, it has been lost by those who have hijacked the protest. Unfortunately, that is the reality of the situation we are in.

I heard the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and a number of Conservatives talk about these mandates this evening. His words were that these mandates need to end. The mandates that relate to proof of vaccination and the mandates that relate to hospital workers are all provincial mandates. It is ironic that opposition members would encourage protesters in front of this building to protest something that at least in Ontario belongs in Queen's Park, but they do it anyway. As a matter of fact, the only mandate the federal government has in place says that people who cross the border into Canada, including truckers, need to show proof of vaccination. Guess what? The United States of America has the exact same mandate. Before someone has to present their proof of vaccination to a Canadian border officer on their way into Canada, they will need to show it on their way into the United States when leaving Canada. That is the irony of this.

That is the mandate the federal government has in relation to this particular protest. It is where all this angst began, and my concern is that the opposition continues to throw fuel on the fire. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan kept saying “these mandates”. He knows full well that the mandate for truckers crossing the border applies to the U.S. just as much as it applies to Canada.

I heard someone from across the way ask why we should do it. That is the whole point of working with our G7 partners. It is the whole point of working with the United States. It is so we have fairness and equality in relation to what the rules are to move back and forth. That is what makes this work so well.

[An hon. member]

It's kind of like the rules for your electric car.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The member brought up my electric car. If he wants, we can talk about that for a while too, but I am not sure why a Conservative would want to do that when we are talking about such an important debate about truckers specifically and what we are seeing out there.

What we are seeing are a number of people who are hijacking this protest. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan said something earlier that I think was a really good comment. He asked why more members of Parliament are not getting out there to talk to those people. He was trying to show an open door. The problem is that this particular protest, although I have no doubt there are some well-intentioned individuals participating in it, has attracted a lot of behaviour that we all would agree is extremely problematic and extremely troubling. Quite frankly, it is behaviour that we do not accept as being Canadian. As an example—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Order. I am having a really hard time hearing the member. The member does speak very loudly but I am having trouble hearing him. Keep it down, be respectful and we will continue on.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, where I was going with this is that although there might be some well-meaning and well-intentioned individuals out there, I cannot help but remember that just the other day, when I was in the Rexall at the corner of Metcalfe and O'Connor, I saw an individual who I assume was a protester shove a camera in front of the clerk's face, saying, “You can't make me put on a mask. I have a right not to wear a mask. Who do you think you are?” They brought this fight to the people of Ottawa, to a store clerk who was just working there and doing her job. I could not help but say to the gentleman as I was leaving, “Why are you bringing this fight to her? Your fight is not with her. She is just doing her job.” I trust that my Conservative colleagues and any member of this House would do the exact same thing.

That brings me to the last point that I want to bring up in relation to this particular issue.

For some reason, the protesters do not realize that the people they are affecting the most with this behaviour are the people who live in downtown Ottawa. Listen. I do not know if we should tell them this, but we cannot hear the honking in here. As a matter of fact, someone walking here early in the morning will not hear a single thing. It was the same last week too. We do not hear a single thing in here. We do not. We could almost forget what is happening until we leave, go outside, and see and hear it again.

Meanwhile, all of these activities have been going on. Then on the weekends, when the vast majority of members are not even in Ottawa, these events continue to go on and on.

It is impacting the people who live here. Most protests seek to get more people on board by delivering a message. They seek to find more supporters to come and join their cause. Most protests that come to Ottawa here on the front lawn or the Centennial Flame or Wellington Street do so in a way that is meant to develop a following on the way. Instead, this protest has come here and completely made the people who live here irate over what is going on.

I believe that it is time for this to end. I believe it is time for the protesters to recognize that they have made their point and that it is now time to dispense with the activities and go home.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will quote the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

My colleague talked about the science and the availability of these mandates that the Liberal government has put in, especially infringing upon Canadians' mobility rights. The rationale for restricting Canadians' charter rights with these mobility restrictions is that vaccinated people do not spread COVID and unvaccinated people do spread COVID. That was the belief before, but the updated science spoken about by Dr. Fauci and research published in The Lancet show that vaccinated and unvaccinated persons will transmit the virus equally. The CDC recognizes natural immunity. Could the member please present the scientific rationale for continuing these mandates?

Let us get on with it. Let us solve the problem that we are faced with today.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member feels as though charter rights are being infringed upon, there is a building about 200 metres from where I stand where he could argue that case. That is where he should take his issue of charter rights being infringed upon, instead of encouraging people to continue honking their horns on the street and shooting off fireworks in the middle of the night in a downtown, heavily urbanized area. He should go to the Supreme Court and fight the case there. That is how we do it in a democracy, not by occupying the downtown core of a nation's capital.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague opposite's speech.

I was pleased to hear him say that some people who went to protest were well meaning and well intentioned. Since the beginning of this crisis, I have had quite the opposite impression, namely that the government did not want to recognize, hear or see that there were people with things to say, that people were fed up with the health measures and were finding them hard to deal with, and that some people needed to express that.

Instead, the Prime Minister said they were whiners, which added fuel to the fire. It was almost as though he wanted the situation to deteriorate so that he could demonize those opposed to the rules. I am wondering why he could not have shown some leadership in this situation.

We have a government here in Ottawa that talked a big game but failed to take action. By contrast, the Government of Quebec did not really say much but actually did something.

Did my colleague learn any lessons from that?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed to hear a member from the Bloc Québécois suggest that we should try to open up dialogue with individuals who have been associated with people who are spreading hate, people who are waving flags with swastikas on them, people who are raiding soup kitchens to feed themselves because somehow they are entitled to that food, people who have been desecrating a war memorial statue, people who have been dressing up Terry Fox's statue. It is not one bad apple but a whole host of problems, and here we have a member from the Bloc Québécois asking why we are not sitting down and talking to these people. They are literally waving flags around that say, “F---” and the Prime Minister's name.

Come on. The member must know that there are starting points to negotiations and to sitting down with people. There are lines that can be crossed, and several lines have been crossed in that regard.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I just need to revisit an important comment of my colleague from Churchill—Keewatinook Aski.

There is a sinister component to this illegal occupation that involves hate, foreign money and influence in our democracy. Will the government take this seriously and address with integrity the sinister and dangerous factors these past 11 days have exposed?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to find out the answers to some of the questions the member asked. I would love to see some form of investigation into where the money came from, where the activities were generated and where they started. They are very important, but I am not going to presuppose that I know the answers to those in advance, because that would just make me a conspiracy theorist, which I believe we are seeing quite a bit of from across the way.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member who just spoke said blatantly on the record tonight that members on this side are conspiracy theorists. That is a pretty significant claim. We are here representing Canadians. He is calling what we have said conspiracy theories. Can he point to one example of our being conspiracy theorists?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

That is descending into debate.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I am going to stand here for just a few moments until people cool down just a little. This is a long debate, and we are a little over halfway through. I know there is tremendous respect here, and we need to make sure that each person who has something to say has the opportunity to say it. Let us try to not be inflammatory or accuse people of things. Let us try our best to talk about the emotions and instances that we are hearing about.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in tonight's very important debate about a very pressing issue and a very important event that is occurring right outside this chamber and has been occurring for the last eight days or so. I want to thank the member forBurnaby South for bringing in and initiating this emergency debate.

As somebody who came to this chamber as a practising lawyer who had worked in the area of constitutional law and human rights for 15 years prior to first getting elected, let me start by saying that the right of protest in any democracy is sacrosanct. It is fundamental in any democracy. It is protected under section 2(b) of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with good reason. The issue of speech and protected speech is at its apex when talking about political speech. That is the form of speech and it deserves the highest amount of protection. That is entrenched in Supreme Court jurisprudence.

What is problematic, however, is when speech, demonstrations and protest veer into hatred. I do not want to overstate the case. We know that there have been some instances of hatred. Perhaps not all of the protesters are engaging in this, but it does taint and flavour and characterize what we are seeing when we see it on a repeated basis.

What have we seen? We have seen swastikas and we have seen the Confederate flag.

What do those mean? The swastika is obviously a symbol of the Third Reich. It hearkens back to Nazi Germany. It is a very vilifying and detestable manifestation of what that regime represented and what it did to Jewish people, all sorts of minorities, racialized persons, religious minorities, LGBTQ2 communities and people who were Roma, etc. The Confederate flag obviously represents the institution of slavery. We heard very eloquently from the member for Hull—Aylmer how that feels for a person of Black skin, for a person who is racialized. We know how that feels for a person like me, a brown-skinned Muslim man, who takes his place in this House. Those are symbols we do not need here.

It means that what it has devolved into for the people of Ottawa, for even the people who work here in Ottawa, such as me, as we have heard repeatedly this evening, is starting to look a lot more like an occupation than a protest. When protesters destabilize people, when they disturb them intentionally and when they honk horns just to aggravate people, as the member for Kingston and the Islands indicated, the fight has been taken not to the government but to the people and the residents of this city.

That is problematic because it starts to affect people's behaviour. Perhaps that is what is intended here. Perhaps the intent is to put a chill on people's behaviour. It is problematic when a storekeeper cannot open their storefront and a cashier is worried about working at Rexall, and it is problematic even for members of Parliament, for my colleagues and, dare I admit it, for myself. When I went home after the Ukraine emergency debate one week ago, I was concerned for the first time in my seven-year parliamentary career about whom I might encounter at 10:30 at night on the streets of Ottawa. That is not a pleasant place to be in, and that is what, unfortunately, this has been driven to.

The next point I want to make is that it is always important to take issue with policy positions. That is what a democracy is all about. That is a good thing. I have been thankful that at least in the protest outside, some people had the good sense to carve out a lane of traffic for emergency vehicles. That is also a good thing. However, what I have still seen and what I saw last summer, this past fall, this winter and even just yesterday is that the people who drive those emergency vehicles are being targeted. They are being targeted with acts of hatred, acts of violence and acts of harassment. People should not fear wearing their uniform. We talk about the people in uniform who are keeping us safe, and they deserve to be credited.

There are other people wearing uniforms, uniforms that are called scrubs. People who are cautioned about wearing their scrubs in public are the people who have been keeping us safe. They are the people who swear the Hippocratic oath to keep everyone safe, no matter how heinous their attitudes, no matter how vile their positions. The people who keep everyone safe, both the people who are vaccinated and the people who are unvaccinated, deserve our respect, appreciation and gratitude. What some people are foisting upon them right now is exactly the opposite. I am not saying all people, but some people. That has to be stopped in its tracks.

I want to inject a third aspect into this discussion, which is about the notion of trucks being filled with gasoline being parked 50 metres from a legislative building such as the House of Commons I am speaking from. We know, I know, and Muslims know that trucks have been used as instruments of death and terror around the planet. What I am saying here is that we have to question things such as unconscious bias in terms of how we approach parked vehicles loaded with gasoline very proximate to a legislative building. I do not think it is vast speculation or venturing a guess here to say that if those were Black protesters, indigenous protesters—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, but I would like to finish.

If those were Muslim protesters calling for peace in the Middle East, I venture a guess that perhaps the reaction of law enforcement would not be to let trucks idle, filled with gasoline, for eight straight days outside of the Parliament Buildings. That is some food for thought to inject into this debate.

The last point I want to make, and again I guess I have to speak over the people opposite because they do not want to listen, is that I find that there is an inherent illogic in a lot of these protests—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I have asked a couple times here already to hear people out. You will all have the opportunity to ask questions. You will all have the opportunity to get on the speaking list. I see that some of you are all ready to go. Let us take the opportunity to listen and make comments and ask questions when we have that opportunity.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the inherent illogic in terms of what is going on outside, I have about six points I am going to make and I will make them quickly.

First of all, the number of federal lockdowns that have been issued in this country in the last two years is exactly zero. They are a provincial jurisdiction. That is the first point.

The second point is that if someone is that concerned about trucking mandates, they might want to take notice of the fact that those mandates are applied across the continent. As the member for Kingston and the Islands rightfully pointed out, there is one that applies to get into the United States, and now there is one that applies to those coming back from the United States.

The third point is that it seems puzzling to this lawyer's mind that if someone's intense philosophical position is that lockdowns are problematic and should be eschewed, then why would someone be causing a lockdown in downtown Ottawa, and by virtue of those actions, preventing the storekeepers from places like Sparks Street, Wellington and the Rideau Centre from opening? It is inherently illogical.

The fourth point is that I find it puzzling that the party of supposed law and order, the party opposite, Her Majesty's official opposition, is doing exactly the opposite in terms of maintaining law and order in this country. What we have seen instead, and I know they are going to start talking because maybe they do not like what I am about to say, is that their interim leader has said to not tell the protesters to go home but to instead make the Prime Minister wear this one. Instead of encouraging law and order and enforcement of the law, they are encouraging exactly the opposite.

What I also find puzzling is that the official opposition prides itself on being the party of fiscal prudence. By the last tally I heard, this “protest” is costing the good people of Ottawa, the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service about $800,000 a day. In terms of fiscal prudence, that is not fiscal wisdom.

I am very impressed that a member, no less a physician, is seeking to heckle me from across the way because he is not happy with what I am talking about.